Dealer sponsors or not..??

[KLR]

in relation to having advertising of different business's on here, a certain site starting with "oz" is now advertising for Team Moto.

A certain site owner/administrator in all the threads I have read of his he has suddenly become very pro-team moto, I don't know if anyone has seen this but I see it as a problem and going against the very idea of an open forum especially when you sell out.

[greenmeanie]

in relation to having advertising of different business's on here, a certain site starting with "oz" is now advertising for Team Moto.

A certain site owner/administrator in all the threads I have read of his he has suddenly become very pro-team moto, I don't know if anyone has seen this but I see it as a problem and going against the very idea of an open forum especially when you sell out.

Not a sell out and forum is still open. Started out as a link exchange and he took it a little further. It isn't a paid advertisement. He got a good deal from one of their stores so he is entitled to his opinion like anyone else. As a moderator on said "oz" site i think i may know a little more of what is going on than you. You may need to get your facts straight b4 you can make any sort of comment.

[KLR]

fair enough, everyone is entitled to their opinion just the way I saw it. I for one have no problems with Midtown Kawasaki whom I used to deal with and quite like them and they are part of the Team Moto group.

However you must wonder how someone forms their opinions especially when they have sponsorship issues to deal with. I see alot of angst being displayed against the people that speak out against Team Moto and sometimes very aggressively.

[greenmeanie]

Ok no worries.........whether you like the team moto concept or not it's here to stay along with the "pro" group.

As far as the t-shirt goes...........as stated b4 i think no dealers. With the discount it appears though kawi oz and the dealers only recognise Kawasaki Riders Club of Australia as the "official" kawasaki riders club.

Anyone know how big this "official" club is ?

I think KSRC needs to be much bigger/active members b4 dealers will take us seriously. There maybe 400 + members but how many active?

Either way you go dave i'll be putting in an order @ the next round of shirt orders. Cheers!

[ozx6r]

Most money seems to be on servicnig and tyres.

Think that we should get sponsorship from independant guys like
Allbikes or MMM motorcycles for servicing and guys like mick from goodna for tyres look after us n e way here in brisbane. if they do a good job we recommomend ppl to go there but maybe we can make it official some how! While these guys dont always stock alot of stuff they will always order it in and beat n e other dealers n e way!

just my 2c

c ya

[Rossi]

If the sponsors aren't coming to the ball then ....Fark 'em

But,
I'll have to agree with Rob on this...
I have always had a better service from Mornington and the guy is a true motorcyclist............he wants to ride with us & not just line his pockets with what is sitting in mine plus the shop is open 7 days a week

[photomike666]

I think if you want to make a sponsorship agreement it needs to be reinforced. How much contact do site admins have with present sponsors?

We had a ride out in Vic a while back and one of the last pick up points was Brighton Kwak (A sponsor). Did anyone tell the shop this was happening? I guess not, coz 30 odd people were outside his shop and it was closed.

We need to be as active as the sponsors, a shirt just isn't enough to warrent a decent discount. If you want to impress a sponsor then take a tip from the British guys demo and organise a ride through. This gives the dealer an idea of what they are dealing with and how much they are going to get out of it - the same could be done with Kwak Aus.

[photomike666]

Also, If you are considering links with non Kwak dealers for the likes of servicing Balls in Sunshine may be interested.

[Lucas]

Look at the end of the day for me personally it doesnt matter if they are a sponsor or not

this is due to working on a system i call The Good Bloke theroy
i give someone a chance at taking my money and only one chance
if there not a good bloke i wont give them a cent doesnt matter how much i need something

if their a good bloke then if they discount or not doesnt matter
I work to hard to give my hard earned money to pricks
so retailers out there be warned pick your staff and train them well because i'm not the only one like this


at the end of the day give your money to a good bloke not an arse

[dave#3]

I'm going with No. My experience has been if you ask nicely you will normally get a 10% discount off most things most of the time, particularly if you frequent a particular store. The times they tell you they can't give you a discount, suck it up - if you were not prepared to pay the listed price then you should never have picked the item up off the shelf.

It wouldn't matter what price a 'sponsor' dealer offered on servicing I wouldn't go past our local bloke - small, independent, fair and damn easy to get along with.

Rather than a 10% discount from dealers, why don't we do ourselves a favour and have an ebay style 'feedback' system - it wouldn't take me too much work to do it - and after 6-12 months we would have something that was of far greater value to most members than a 10% discount would ever be.

Imagine being able to look at a list of deaers and see, at a glance, how the KSRC community feel about their workmanship / pricing / attitude / service / etc. With a feature like this horror stories such as Mario's brakes or Dave's dodgey race engine dont remain only in the depths of time, they are there at a glance for everyone to see.

Just my thoughts* ...

*mods: please feel free to edit them if they are not in-line with the current sponsorship deals

[MadKaw]

Yep all good points...

Just one note, Daves dodgy race engine, was fixed and sorted (at great additional expense) by one of our sponsors..
(Just so the current owner knows its fine..)
The shop that did the the first rebuild was not and will not be a sponsor..

[Blackzxr]

Look at the end of the day for me personally it doesnt matter if they are a sponsor or not

this is due to working on a system i call The Good Bloke theroy
i give someone a chance at taking my money and only one chance
if there not a good bloke i wont give them a cent doesnt matter how much i need something

if their a good bloke then if they discount or not doesnt matter
I work to hard to give my hard earned money to pricks
so retailers out there be warned pick your staff and train them well because i'm not the only one like this


at the end of the day give your money to a good bloke not an arse

Here here Lucas. And fark you too. The one ride i don't come on, you show up Still holding you to that drink too.

Mike
I told Brighton about the ride, but they had something else on. If it were my shop, i'd have someone at the counter. I reckon a few would have bought some bits and pieces.

A lot of us Vics have decided mornington is a better option anyway. Just a shame, he is so far south in my neck of the woods. I have a $5 delivery charge, though. I need to keep kms up on the car for FBT anyway

[Jonno]

I think the sponsers link page as what we have at present is just perfect, if a business wants to offer a discount to members sure put their logo and link there. When a members asks where to get this or that item just refer them to the sponsers page, easy.

We are spread out over Australia and I believe that what others have said about building a good relationship with the local suppliers or dealers I think this may make it difficult and unfair to access the benifits from other areas.

From what I know about forum costs such as this one (had involvement at a simular size forum of a different nature with the same issue), I think we can remain self sufficeint even if we have to pass the hat around for donations which Iam more than happy to contribute too. If we allow sponser banners and the like we become owned in a sense and can create an issue with members with sponsership or advertiser dollars, profit, who gets what money etc. also limiting freedom of speech which was also mentioned, and any other sponsers deals.

I for one would not like to see adds all over the place.
my 2 cents worth.

[icebreaker]

Perhaps the best idea is to say No more sponsors. And review it in 6-12 months.

At teh end of the day very few people are actually getting the discount that was actually offered. And at the same time, which of these shops have shown any interest in..

a. The KSRC website itself.. checking out the forums, or simply dropping a line to someone.
b. Standing by the discount offered.. In the scheme of retail what's 10%.. really... No retails store in it's right mind sells things for less than atleast 30%, and to have customers walk in and make a purchase, and baring in mind this person wouldn't have come in if not for the sponsorship arrangement, this is still profit less 10%, and product turn over.

I must say Mornington Kawa certainly does seem to be interested in getting involved. The distance factor for me is a huge turn off, but if it came to buying a new bike or getting an expensive part with the potential of cash savings, what's an hour or so drive/ride

I voted yes to Advertising, but i am perfectly happy to say NO... Perhaps we're best to stay independant, and just agree to review the situation towards the end of the rear.


Dan

[Tack]

A friend of mine, Ben Driscoll, owns a spare parts and performance (motorsport orientated) shop in Cowes on Phillip Island. He supplies a heap of stuff to motogp teams and SBK teams when they come to the Island. They like to travel light as possible and source incidental stuff locally plus flamable stuff for cleaning discs and engines can't be brought on planes plus they lose stuff along the way too. He says it real funny trying to work out what a french/japanese/german/dutch person wants when you can't speak their language (if they don't speak english that is). Anyway getting off the point. He is an agent for quite alot of motorcycle accessories. I'm going down this wednesday to see what I workout with him.

I spoke to him about getting some sort of discount for KSRC members. He is happy to offer a discount and doesn't want anything in return as far as advertising etc. As he is down at Phillip Island and long way away then Im happy to get prices for stuff and distribute stuff to people as I still have a business registered and running. (I used to work for race teams doing suspension and tyres and still do work for some teams and people and Ben is one of them)

Anyway, the point is that this guy is willing to give a discount to a group simply because its a customer base of quite a large number of people that he would never normally have access to (unless you go to the island for racing). To him its a possible means of increasing his sales without spending any dollars...thats all.

I believe that advertising on web sites, bikes and T-shirts is worth quite a bit of money. Just a small ad in the Yellow pages for example can cost a advertiser $25,000 a year and that only covers the state he is in. This site covers all states and probably has a very high 'hit' rate which makes it worth X amount. Don't give away advertising space for next to nothing. If the advertiser isn't willing to pay the true "value" of your site, t-shirts etc then it ain't worth it.